A fresh cutblock up the Ghost mainline is shown in this handout photo near Grande Cache, Alberta taken early winter of 2013. (Darcy Handy / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

HINTON, Alta. -- Scientists studying the ravaged caribou habitat of Alberta's northwestern foothills say they have found so much disturbance from decades of industrial use that restoration will have to be selective.

"There's just so much disturbance, it's important we prioritize," said Laura Finnegan, a biologist with the Foothills Research Institute in Hinton, Alta.

The institute is one year into a three-year study on how animals and humans continue to use this ragged landscape in an effort to understand how to best restore it. Governments are counting on that work to help them live up to promises of sustainable development.